No sir! I didn't see you playing with your dolls sir!

LOL!

San Francisco Giants vs. Philadelphia Phillies - Recap - September 02, 2009 - ESPN

In Brad Penny's first start away from Boston, he goes 8 innings, gives up 5 hits and 0 runs. Over the Philadelphia Phillies.

At this point, I'm thinking there is something up with the pitching coaches up in Boston.

Apparently because we're trying to help Gwinnett win their division (1 GB of Durham after tonight's loss, six games left) by not calling up some other options (Canizares, Brandon Jones, hell even Chris Burke)

Bah! You forgot the key word. "again" :D

Yup, that's why last night's game was important, knew they were going up against Hernandez today. Even though the Angels have had a little success against Hernandez, so far as I recall (all relative, he still pitches well against us as with any team), you had to figure this was going to be a hard one to win. So losing to some kid named Fister (and on a night when Santana was on his game) is more than a little flabbergasting.

Obviously Garrett Jones isn't slugging .700 anymore, but he was in the .870 OPS range last month. And he's starting Sept with a bang. I'd say he has a very good chance at winning the ROY. Although him and McCutch might split some votes, and enable someone else to win.

Or the National League :)

You mean against the same team that utterly destroyed the AL Champion in the World Series last year? :)

And didn't we already have this discussion with, say, Mark Teixeira showing that apparently in 2008 that NL pitching was far better than AL pitching ;).

Didn't we just have this discussion? One series is too small of a sample size to draw anything out of.

It is difficult to take claims that pitching in the NL is just as difficult as pitching in the AL seriously, if for no other reason than the pitcher batting.

Tongue in cheek my friends!

Royals clinch a losing season last night. Now all that's left to do is secure that #1 draft pick!

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the pitcher batting doesn't change you from putz to ace overnight either.

I'm more inclined to lean heavily on small sample size but as that grows, it calls into question Boston's pitching coach staff.

SI

I was only speaking to the AL-NL thing.

As far as John Farrell goes, his track record speaks for itself as far as I'm concerned.

yeah. i don't think Farrell is the problem. He's pretty much universally recognized throughout baseball as being damn good isn't he?

Again, I really thing this all disappears in a month when neither Smoltz nor Penny keep it up. Again, I think small sample size is the biggest contributor to this little side story.

SI

Smoltzie's pitching again in about an hour. We'll find out. :)

Also, Smoltz will be in the bullpen in about a month, so the story may change. He'll be ridiculously effective as a setup guy.

Smoltz got lit up by the Nationals while still playing in the NL. :) (Granted, it was his first game back)

Yeah- it's a lot easier when you're only going through the lineup once and can get an extra couple of mph on each of your pitches as well as lean on the better ones that day without risk of overexposure.

SI

In the case of Smoltz, he was pitching quite a bit better than his ERA showed in Boston. He was the victim of bad luck in terms of fielding behind him (only a .617 DER at Boston) and LOB % (only 56.9% with Boston). He was due for some positive regression to the mean, and that has happened for him with St. Louis.

As for Penny, it's one game. He only struck out 2 in 8 innings, meaning he was somewhat fortunate that all the balls put in play were in positions to be fielded and turned into outs. He's not going to get enough starts in the rest of the season at SF to really tell us a whole lot, but he didn't appear to be suffering from bad luck in Boston - he simply isn't a great pitcher, just an average one.

Didn't they already do this on opening day? :)

WHERE IS YOUR SMOLTZ NOW, HUH

I hope Buster Posey gets to start tonight. Just keep resting that quad, Bengie.

Nah, there's always the pesky Nats and Pirates to contend with ;)

SI

And apparently the Orioles and Indians are rejoining them.

Ya, I find it hard to believe that Smoltz and Penny are really Cy Young caliber aces and Farrell was holding them back.

I mean if Lester and Beckett left, what would they turn into, 30-game winners?

The Orioles are a team on the rise, for what it's worth. I wouldn't be shocked if they passed the Blue Jays next year.

Smoltzie didnt actually look too bad today, not a great start but definitely better than anything he did in Boston.

They will absolutely finish ahead of Toronto next season. The Orioles have prospects and a plan. Toronto doesn't have much of anything, really.

Except Vernon Wells' gigantic contract still. lol

Agreed.

I may not be a fan of the head office, but if nothing else they found out that they have a lot of good young arms very close to be ready for major league action (or ready to go already in the right situation).

They need to address a few spots in the field, but pitching wise they should be very strong next year, even if they lose Halladay. At this point they're certainly hoping both Marcum and McGowan come back at 100% but the rotation would still be very solid if only one of them comes back as a top 3 in the rotation type pitcher.

Not saying the Orioles are going to do poorly, but I don't think this is a given by any stretch of the imagination. They've still got some awfully good younger hitters (Hill and Lind, potentially Snider) and what looks to be a pretty solid pitching staff. If they can avoid the injury bug and make a couple of good free agent moves (this is by far the most troublesome area with JP in charge, but things may change once the season is over) or trades they're going to be a good squad.

Yeah, 4 runs in 6 innings is nothing horrible. He ran out of gas, obviously.

Sweet. Velez hits the first pitch for a HR in the Lincecum/Pedro dual.

Lincecum-Pedro "duel"?

Did they somehow import Pedro circa 2000 in for this game?

Philadelphia takes two out of three from the Giants but should feel damn lucky they didn't get swept.

Apparently, yes.

IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
P. Martinez (W, 3-0)	7.0	5	1	1	0	9

Smoltz and his alleged tipping of pitches, maybe, Brad Penny no. The guy is a one-pitch pitcher, and the balls in play were fielded for once. (Though I did tell y'all to pick him up for your fantasy teams.)

DT/Ronnie - I don't have evidence he's a bad pitching coach, but the evidence of John Farrell being a good pitching coach is about as available as that of Varitek's "superior" game-calling ability.

Or San Francisco takes one out of three from the Phillies but should feel damn lucky Boston cut Brad Penny last week. :D

Seriously though, I'd expect Philly-San Francisco to be one hell of a series.

Fortunately, the Phils would have home-field advantage for that one.

I'd say both statements are pretty accurate.

lol...I was out and about, so couldn't respond with irony at my own comment, but I, too, was thinking when I heard the score, "Whatdya know, they really did import Pedro 2000 for the game!". :)

No, they just faced the Giants playing like its 19-fucking-67. The Phillies score 3 frigging runs, and win the Series.

Rays tied an annoying little stat with 17 pitching changes in a 3-game non-extra inning series.

Just heard an interesting report on an ESPN news show. One of the guests said that Veritek is notorious for calling a ton of fastballs and that's one of the reasons both Smoltz and Penny struggled. Neither have the fastballs to beat good hitters and once StL and SF had these guys change speeds more, they've been more effective (he also said a similar thing about Pedro in Philly).

That might be a small part of it for Smoltz, but the fact of the matter is Smoltz didn't have much luck on balls put in play - Boston only managed to turn less than 62% of them into outs, which is well below the expected 68-71% range.

No. He was pitching against a AA offense.

Fucking Giants! How does Lincecum have 7 starts allowing 2 runs or less with no win?!

Learn how to situational hit!!!:banghead::banghead::banghead:

Like Crapshoot said, 3 runs given up and we lose the series 1-2.

Yeah, I think it was fanball where they were talking about those stats a few days ago and how he was just ridiculously unlucky and it was somewhat foolish to make a decision on such a small sample size.

SI

{shrug} Jair Jurjenns has 11 starts allowing 2 runs or less without a win.

9 no decisions, gave up 2 or less in 7 of those, 2 ER or less in 8 of them.
*(one of those was a 2 inning rain delayed thing)

9 losses, gave up 2 or less in 4 of those, gave up only 2 ER in a fifth.
*(also had a 2 inning rain delay outing in a 1 run allowed outing)

Zack has a pair of losses and 4 no decisions where he's given up 2 or less and another loss where he gave up 4 but only 2 were earned. Every one of those has been 6 innings or more.

SI

Red Sox closer*Jonathan Papelbon fined again for slow pace - MLB - SI.com



I wish they did this more often. Actually, what I really wish they would do this with would be batters. Again, no, you don't need 30 seconds in between each pitch to do all sorts of crap. Get in the box and swing, jackass.


SI

Yep, Maddon pissed me off last year when he brought in a lefty(or maybe it was a righty) in the 9th for 2 batters. He was winning by 5.

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Pittsburgh Pirates - Box Score - June 27, 2008 - ESPN

Eric Wedge is really bad about using guys for one-two batters for seemingly no sense either.

I can see it with Smoltz, but I don't know what it has to do with Penny or Pedro. Brad Penny has thrown >70% fastballs for his career and was at 71.9% in Boston. If anything it was more Varitek relying on the curve and slider instead of the changeup for an offspeed pitch. Pedro's always been known for switching speeds and didn't exactly do poorly in Boston.If you're talking about his RS sample size, he was unlucky in that he didn't deserve an ERA in the high 8's, but his FIP was still around 5 and it was clear he wouldn't be able to go twice through an order in the AL postseason. Since he refused to go into the bullpen where he belongs, it made sense to drop him and his $35k/day for being on our active roster.

What ESPN guy was saying is that AL teams rely much more on overpowering hitters in their pitching calls. Whereas the NL is more about changing speeds and keeping hitters off balance. It's why guys like AJ Burnett, Josh Beckett and a young Pedro can come over to the AL and do fine. But it's also why guys in their twilight tend to pitch better in the NL (not to mention you don't face a DH).

The scout they were talking to on ESPN stated that was a philosophical difference (esp when it comes to teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and Angels).

I still don't think it really fits with Penny (who still throws very hard) or Pedro (who always changed speeds beautifully) but I can see the overall point.

As for tonight.... nothing like September baseball, where your team can go down 12-1 and replace 7 of the 8 defensive starters in the 5th inning.

I'm starting to think these Angels are like the 1995 Angels. They're going to do whatever it takes to keep the Rangers in it. Tuesday they made Fister look like a star, and tonight it's Tejada. They haven't scored now in 26-27 innings now, and it's not like they're playing the Yanks-Red Sox.

Fruit basket from Angels to Trey Hillman now for not going to Soria when he had two different chances in the 8th.

Not only did he have a chance to start the inning. But he could have done it instead of going to Bale. Or after Bale injured himself. But no, Roman Colon gives up the (likely) game winning hit to Vlad.

SI

Yeah, tough luck for the Royals on Bale. Isn't Soria the closer? Or am I forgetting who your closer is?

Sure, Soria's the closer but 2 on with 1 out in the 8th, up just 1-0 seems like about the most high leverage situation you'd see in the game.

SI

I would agree, except that's more saber-think than conventional wisdom. The traditionalists would only have Soria come out for the ninth.

This is one of those spots when I would lean to go with the sabermetric approach, but I'm not surprised to see Hillman go with the traditionalist approach (after all, most of baseball thinks this way).

Plus they used Soria for a two-inning save the other day and he threw a lot of pitches, plus he's complained of feeling sore all season. I think they would have used him in the ninth but not in the eight.

The rest of the bullpen is a gas can. Too bad to waste the yeoman's work of Tejada filling in for Meche, who along with Bannister also has a sore shoulder. But it's OK 'cause the Angels are getting a can of Greinke whoop ass served to them tomorrow night!

I think it's time to just shut down Banny and Meche and decide what to do with Soria. Then, clean house with the training staff in the offseason so they can't do more damage to their arms.

SI

Tomorrow should be a good one. Greinke versus Lackey.

One of Greinke's two losses when allowing two or less runs was against the Angels earlier this year, when he was (rarely) outdueled by Joe Saunders in a fantastic two-pitcher complete game 1-0 game. It would be fun to see another one like that tomorrow night (although Lackey needs to pitch like the Lackey of old to do it).

I will say, I find the Rangers fascinating this year, especially since they are doing it with pitching. Millwood and Feldman have been very good and recently Hunter and Nippert have been excellent - and the bullpen has been lights out.

Yup, Rangers have been very good this year, and fielding a squad that is very much atypical of what they usually put out there. It's a testament to their re-focus on pitching.

I certainly don't want them to catch the Angels, of course, but I am rooting for them to get the wildcard.

Yeah, same (I want Boston out of the playoff picture ;) - got the Yanks out last year, now for Yankees Lite to get the same :D).

Of course their hitting was supposed to be better. Kinsler is not doing so well from what the projections were on him and Salty was supposed to be the C that could hit (while Teagarden was the one who could field). Neither can hit, so Pudge was brought back!

I was at the Rays Tigers game and watched Rodney almost blow one....a great game, pitchers duel and good defense before things opened up in the 9th.

Has to be my fault. Needed to add some saves to my fantasy team, and, inexplicably, I found him just sitting out there. So I picked him up.

I also picked up Piniero on St. Louis, Felipe Lopez on whichever team he's on now, and Ubaldo Jimenez on COL. So if you're fans of these teams, I'm sorry in advance.

The funny thing about this is this used to be the traditionalist approach until a confluence of things - Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan helped reshape bullpen usage in the late '80's and early '90's and the "Save" statistic gained currency around the game (and thus in the pocketbooks of closers).

Remember back when good relievers would pitch 100+ innings a year? When a guy like Gossage or Fingers or Sutter would be brought into a tight game in the 7th because it was a high leverage situation and then he'd finish the game from there?

I wonder if any other sport has seen the invention of a statistic result in managerial decision-making that goes against providing the best chances of winning the game...

Don't want to see us again in October? (I don't blame you - it feels cliche at this point.) Plus I'm hoping Nolan goes all out and goes back to a 4-man rotation. :)

Nope, not one bit! :D

I think we can beat the Red Sox (I always do). But if we just flat don't have to play them, I'm fine with that. ;)

Angels... don't want to play them again.
Athletics were the Angels until 2005
Rangers terrify me this year, which leads to one inescapable conclusion: Dawgfan/Seattle Do Work!

(PS CR - If we miss the playoffs and Texas keeps playing well, you get to play at NYY then at Arlington. Not ideal ;))

As long as a trip to Fenway is not in the cards, I am fine with that. Besides, you may have noticed that, on those few occasions when we have managed to avoid you, we're kinda like what you guys are to us to the Yankees. They love seeing us in the postseason. ;)

Texas has given us problems this year. Maybe Detroit will take care of them.

Seriously. They've killed us, they've killed you - who's beating them this year? (Apparently Detroit, and to a lesser extent MIN, NYY and the NL.)

Hey, quick question fellas.
I'm not a big baseball guy, but I love my Astros...

What happened last night?!?

And are we about to rebuild? or do we still have a chance to make some noise (over the next 2 years or so).

Phils aren't hitting for sh!t recently - I think it's like 11 runs in the last 7 games (with a winning record over them, but still). Cliff Lee's second bad outting in a row, so I don't know what's going on with that. Still, I thought the 'Stros were looking strong this season and you say they're going to rebuild? Seems odd to me, although I think last night was more of a confluence of factors than an indicator.

Well... I say rebuild because Berkman, Lee are getting old, Oswalt is solid, but not getting younger.
They could be trade bait for some very solid prospects. We don't have any young guys from what I've seen, and it doesn't bode well from our future.

Nothing more disappointing than seeing Randy Winn in the lineup everyday. Guy is DONE!

Its fucking pathetic that Bochy and Sabean insist on keeping the useless old farts around: Winn, Aurillia, Bengie - Buster Posey is our 2nd best hitter, Fred Lewis has the 2nd highest OBP, but no, they sit cuz fucking melonhead has a goddamn veteran fetish.

Love watching Uribe take those huge hacks

Have you considered adopting Kansas City as an AL team. You can watch Miguel Olivo instead of Bryan Pena. Or Willie Bloomquist instead of trying out and seeing what Mitch Maier can do. Why check out Lenny DiNardo in AAA when you could run Bruce Chen or Sidney Ponson or Horacio Ramirez out there for starts. And let's not even get started on the Carlos Rosa problem.

SI

Haha, I'm not willing to subject myself to that much misery SI. There are limits.

Well, I'll be out seeing said Giants in about 3 weeks (26th vs the Cubs in San Fran) :)

That's going to be 6 parks in about 2 months this year (Yankee Stadium, Citizens Bank in Philly, Nationals Park, Camden Yards, the renovated Kaufman, and soon AT&T in San Fran)

SI

Pac Bell / AT &T is an amazing park; love going there. I might come out for a game then; there's a few of us in the Bay Area I think.

The Astros are winning again tonite??
What's going on here?!? :P

Wow. Rays imploding last half inning and now that game is tied.

Speaking of imploding: Zack with 0 ER an 8 K's but left the game with it tied 1-1 after an unearned run scored in the 8th.

Z. Greinke

8.0

8

1

0

2

8

0

1.08

2.22

SI

GO ASTROS!!! HELL YEAH!!!
(sorry... got a bit excited :D)

Brett Myers will be closing for the Phillies within the next week. Book it.

The Braves are pretty much out of it with that four game losing streak. They kept it interesting longer than I thought they would in April but then again I also thought the Cubs and Mets were going to be good.

Tigs are on a nice roll, and just won their second straight road series after losing 10 in a row, beating Anaheim and Tampa at that. They're up 6 games in the Central right now but they have a few games with the Twins left that'll go a long way in determining the division.

I believe today will clinch another losing Season for the Bucs. At least maybe Ohlendorf has established himself as a solid major league starter. 2.70 ERA since the break in 9 starts. Whip of about 1.2.

I had hoped Lidge had turned it around after his last couple outings and then he does that yesterday. It looks like he pitches well until he either gets behind a hitter or gets a runner on base. He looks totally f'd up in the head when that happens, like he's just waiting for it to come crashing down. I noticed that a couple weeks back when an error led to a baserunner; they showed him and his body language looked like he was already defeated. It's like he thinks that he has to be absolutely perfect or he will blow it.

Hey, hey, ho, ho Lidge has got to go!

Having a closer who has more than 2 different pitches might be a good idea.

Sadly, I get the feeling that keeping Lidge as closer is financially motivated.

Removing him from the closer's role will likely cause Lidge to lose any effectiveness he has left, for the remainder of his time in Philly since that's what happened in Houston. With two more years on his contract, that's a pretty expensive gamble.

Mariano Rivera and his one pitch say "Hi!"

Not to restart arguments on its effectiveness, but FRAA has him as the 3rd best defensive outfielder this season. Plus his BABIP is 30-40 points below last year's. Not sure why Aurilia gets any starts though.

Woo

17!

Are you talking about Winn? His BABIP is probably low because he can't make solid contact on anything. Watching his recent AB's is one of the more depressing things you can be forced to endure.

(17 whats?)

SI

:(

Losing seasons.

Oh.

SI

Ok, MLBN, I expect a bit more from you. They're talking about the Pirates and all agree that Pittsburgh is a small market. Then one of the morons goes on to say "Well, it doesn't affect the Steelers and the it doesn't affect the Penguins. There's something wrong with the Pirates." Yeah, the Penguins may not be your best example what with the bankruptcy and all. Never mind that they the other two sports have vastly different financial systems that even the playing field.

SI